The Legacy Chronicles: Killing Giants

by Pittacus Lore

  “I need a phone,” Six replied.

  “Certainly,” Mike said. “There’s a courtesy phone right through there.” He indicated a doorway to the right of the reception area.

  Six thanked him and walked over to the alcove where a phone was attached to the wall. Picking it up, she dialed. Lexa picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey, you’ll never guess where I am.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MAX

  POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE it out?”

  Max stared at Nine. They were in the infirmary at the Human Garde Academy, where they had returned the previous night after escaping from the bunker in Utah using the bathysphere Nine had found. Ever since getting back, Max had been the focus of tests to figure out what was in his head. Scientists at the school had also been studying the creature that Nemo had brought in a jar. Max hadn’t slept at all, and was exhausted. Now, finding out that they weren’t going to remove the parasite that was inside him, he got even more frightened.

  “Am I going to die?”

  “No!” Nine said, coming and sitting on the edge of Max’s bed. “In fact, that’s why they want to leave it in you. At least for now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your body seems to be forming antibodies to the parasite,” Nine explained. “It’s fighting back on its own.”

  “Is that why I’ve been feeling better?” Max asked.

  “Do something for me,” Nine said. “Try to move the glass on your tray using your telekinesis.”

  Max looked at the tray sitting on the table beside his bed. It held the dishes left over from his breakfast. He focused his attention on the cup that a short time ago had been filled with orange juice. He pictured it flying across the room. Nothing happened. He lifted his hands and, feeling a little silly, pretended to push the glass while simultaneously trying to shove it with his mind. The glass moved a few inches, then toppled over.

  “Well, that sucked,” Max said glumly.

  “Not at all,” said Nine. “Last night, you couldn’t do anything.”

  Max grinned. “True,” he said. “So, they think I’m getting better?”

  Nine nodded. “They think you’re going to be fine. Even better, they think they can use your blood to make an antiserum that will help Six and Sam.”

  “Really?” Max said. “I guess that makes me a kind of superhero, huh?”

  “You already were, bud,” said Nine.

  “Do we know where Six and Sam are?” Max asked.

  “Not yet,” said Nine. “But we’re working on it.”

  “Actually, we do,” said Lexa, walking in.

  Nine and Max looked at her.

  “Six called me,” Lexa explained. “A couple of minutes ago.”

  “Where is she?” said Nine.

  “Las Vegas,” Lexa answered. “A place called the Saturn Hotel.”

  “Is she okay?” Max asked anxiously.

  Lexa nodded. “She’s fine. For now, anyway. But the Mogs took Sam somewhere else, and she doesn’t know where yet. She’s working on it.”

  “The Saturn Hotel,” Nine said. “Why does that name sound familiar? Wait. Isn’t that the place where they’re doing that circus thing based on us?”

  “Cirque des Étoiles,” Lexa said. “Battle for Earth.”

  “That’s it,” said Nine. “They contacted me a while ago and asked if I wanted to be a special guest on opening night. Even offered me a free suite. I said no.”

  “Afraid they’re going to get it all wrong?” said Lexa.

  “Holding out for the penthouse,” said Nine.

  “Can we get back to Six and Sam?” Max said impatiently. “We’re going to go help them, right?”

  “Of course we are,” said Nine.

  Max started to get out of bed.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Nine said, stopping him.

  “You just said, we’re going to go help them,” said Max.

  “Not so fast,” Nine said. “First, Six is okay for now. Second, I told you, we need you to create an antiserum to that thing. That’s going to take time.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nine. “But right now you need to stay here. Lexa and I have some planning to do.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll be back in a little while,” Nine promised. “In the meantime, keep practicing your telekinesis. When I come back, I want to see you throw that thing across the room.”

  Nine and Lexa left, and Max leaned against the pillows. He stared at the glass. It moved a quarter of an inch. He lifted his hand and slapped it with the other hand.

  “Did you just high-five yourself?” Nemo asked from the doorway.

  “No,” Max said, embarrassed. “Okay, yeah.”

  Nemo laughed. “You’re something else,” she said, walking over to the bed and sitting where Nine had been a moment before. “How are you feeling?”

  “Good,” Max said. “How about you?”

  “Better,” Nemo said. “I actually slept a couple of hours. It was nice to be in a real bed. But then I woke up and started thinking about everybody.”

  “Six and Sam?”

  “Them,” Nemo said. “But also Ghost and Lava and Bats. We don’t know what happened to them. Or Seamus.”

  “Forget that guy,” Max said angrily. “After everything he’s done?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Nemo said. “Still. I saw his dad this morning. He looked upset.”

  Max grunted. He wasn’t going to waste any time worrying about Seamus. But he was worried about the others. He’d been relieved to be out of the bunker, but he wondered if some of them were still trapped in there.

  “They know where Six is,” he told Nemo.

  “I heard,” Nemo said. “I ran into Nine and Lexa on my way up here. That’s great. I also heard you’ve got magic blood.”

  “I’m a miracle of science,” Max said.

  “I’m really happy to not be carrying that thing around anymore,” Nemo said. “I can’t even imagine having one of those crawling around inside my head, eating pieces of my brain or sucking up my Legacies or whatever it is they do.” She stopped talking and looked at Max, her eyes wide. “Sorry, I forgot you have one—”

  “It’s okay,” Max said. “Anyway, I think it’s dead, or at least it’s not doing what it was doing anymore. I’m getting my telekinesis back. Watch.”

  He tried once again to move the glass. This time he succeeded in pushing it to the edge. He was concentrating on shoving it off and onto the floor, when a nurse appeared.

  “Can I interrupt you for some blood?” he asked Max.

  “More?” Max said. “How much do you need?”

  “Only another gallon,” the nurse said. “Maybe two.”

  Max groaned and held out his arm. “Just bleed me dry, leech man.”

  As the nurse tied the rubber tubing around Max’s arm and started looking for a vein he said, “Tell you what. After this, how’d you like to come down and see what we’re doing with all this blood?”

  Max shut his eyes and grimaced slightly as the nurse slid a needle into his arm. “Deal,” he said.

  Once the blood was drawn, Max got out of bed and he and Nemo followed the nurse out of the room, into the hall and into the elevator. This took them down to the level where the labs were. There they walked into an office filled with equipment. A woman was seated at one of the desks, looking at something through a microscope.

  “Dr. Fenris,” the nurse said. “This is Max and his friend Nemo.”

  The woman looked up. “What a pleasure,” she said, standing and holding her hand out to Max. “I was just looking at your remarkable blood.” She then shook Nemo’s hand. “And thanks to you, we have a specimen of the parasite we’re dealing with.”

  “Does Max’s blood really kill it?” Nemo asked.

  “Well, the antibodies his body produces in response to the parasite neutralize it
s effects,” Dr. Fenris explained. “That in turn keeps it from feeding effectively on its host. So, yes, it will die. The important thing as far as we’re concerned right now is that we think the antiserum we’re working on will do the same to the parasite in another infected person.” She looked at Max. “I understand some of your telekinesis has already returned.”

  Max nodded. “It’s getting stronger and stronger,” he said.

  “That’s excellent news,” the doctor said.

  “So, if we can get your antiserum to Six and Sam, they’ll be back to normal?” Nemo asked.

  “Hopefully,” said Dr. Fenris. “Assuming the parasite hasn’t developed too much.”

  “What do you mean?” Max asked her.

  “The specimen Nemo brought back is a mature one,” the doctor said. “The end-stage form. The one that was injected into you was microscopic. You didn’t even know it was there. But once it gets as large as the one you retrieved from the bunker, it’s likely too late to reverse the effects.”

  “How long does it take to get that big?” said Nemo.

  “We don’t know,” the doctor admitted. “My guess is quite some time. Six and Sam have been infected for less than a week at this point, so I’m hopeful that the damage isn’t irreversible. If we get the antidote into them soon.”

  “How soon?” asked Max.

  “As soon as possible,” said the doctor, without elaborating. But the expression on her face worried Max.

  “Where did this thing come from, anyway?” Nemo asked. “Like, is it just out there in the world? Could it infect anyone with a Legacy?”

  “I don’t think so, no,” said Dr. Fenris. “My guess is that it was created by the Mogs you had a run-in with. It’s unlike any parasite I’ve ever seen before. Here. Take a look.”

  She beckoned them over to the microscope. Max leaned down, peering through the eyepiece. He saw something that looked like three big purple blobs. “What are those?”

  “Those are the toxins created by the parasite,” Dr. Fenris said. “Now watch what happens next.”

  She placed the tip of a thin pipette on the surface of the glass slide in the microscope. Max saw a thin stream of tiny red bubbles come out.

  “What’s that?” Max asked.

  “Those are the antibodies from your blood,” the doctor explained.

  As if they sensed the antibodies, the toxins moved towards them, like monsters hunting their prey. Max felt his heartbeat quicken. For some reason, watching the toxins attack his blood terrified him. But then something interesting happened. The antibodies attacked, throwing themselves against the walls of the toxins until they broke through. Then they rushed in, filling up the purple blobs with red and consuming them.

  “That’s awesome,” Max said, stepping aside so that Nemo could have a turn watching.

  “That’s science,” Dr. Fenris said.

  “So if Max’s body can do this, why can’t Six’s and Sam’s?” Nemo asked.

  “Every body is different,” Dr. Fenris said. “In medicine, we like to say that immune systems are built, not born. That means that your body develops defenses based on what it’s exposed to over the course of your life. For some reason, Max’s body has developed a way to fight the parasite. It could be because he was exposed to something similar in the past. Or his specific Legacy might have something to do with it, since his ability changes his brain function. Or his body could just be better at fighting invaders.”

  “In other words, you don’t really know,” said Nemo.

  Dr. Fenris smiled. “The important thing is that it seems to work.”

  Listening to her talk, Max had a thought. “But it might not work in Sam and Six, then, right? I mean, if their bodies are different from mine.”

  “We’re hopeful that it will,” Dr. Fenris said.

  The excitement that had been building in Max suddenly lessened. If the antiserum didn’t work, that meant that Six and Sam would die.

  “There’s every reason to think it will work, Max,” the doctor said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

  Max nodded, but inside he was still worried.

  “When will you take the thing out of Max’s head?” Nemo asked.

  “Soon,” said Dr. Fenris. “If we take it out, his body might stop producing antibodies, and we need him to keep making those for now.”

  A dinging sound rang out, and Dr. Fenris pulled a phone from her pocket and looked at it. “Nine would like the two of you to come to his office,” she said.

  Max looked at Nemo. Something was up. “Let’s go,” he said.

  When they arrived, they found Nine with Lexa, Dr. Goode and Peter McKenna. There was also a surprise visitor.

  “Bats!” Max exclaimed when he saw the teen from Utah sitting in a chair. She stood up, smiling, and Max went and hugged her. “How did you get here?”

  “Nine sent a team to secure the bunker,” Bats said. “They got me out. I just got here a little while ago.”

  Max’s happiness evaporated. “I’m sorry we left you,” he said. “Everything happened so quickly and I didn’t know where you were.”

  “It’s okay,” Bats said, hugging him again. “I know. When everything went wrong, I found a place to hide and waited there until I thought it was safe to come out. Of course, I hadn’t counted on Magdalena’s little pets.”

  Max shuddered, remembering the dragon-like monsters that had chased him and Nemo through the halls of the bunker.

  “The important thing is, she’s here now,” Nine said.

  “What about Lava?” Max asked.

  Bats shook her head. “I’m the only one who was left behind,” she said. “As far as I know, anyway.”

  “Nobody else was in the bunker,” Nine confirmed. “But we do know Six and Sam are in Vegas.”

  “We don’t know that Sam is still there,” Dr. Goode said, sounding concerned about his son. “The Mogs might have moved him again after separating him from Six.”

  “Until we have other information, let’s assume he’s there,” Nine said. “Which is why we’re going there.”

  “We?” Max said. “As in all of us?”

  “Not all of us,” Nine said. “But me and you and Nemo are.”

  “I thought I had to stay here,” said Max.

  “Do you want to stay here?” said Nine.

  “No,” Max said quickly. “I just thought you needed my blood here.”

  “And maybe we’ll need it there, too,” Nine said.

  “I still don’t like this,” McKenna said tersely.

  “I know you don’t,” Nine replied, giving him a dark look. “But you’re not in charge here. I am.”

  “Why not call in Earth Garde to handle it?” McKenna suggested.

  Nine sighed, as if this was a ridiculous suggestion. “Six is fine,” he reminded McKenna. “And there are only a handful of Mogs left.”

  “Dangerous Mogs,” McKenna said. “And they have Sam.”

  “They won’t for long,” Nine said. “I don’t think calling in Earth Garde and making a big deal about this is going to help anyone. We can handle it.”

  Max glanced at McKenna. He looked exhausted. Max suspected the man was thinking about his son and what he’d done. Seamus had betrayed all of them, and that couldn’t be sitting well with his father, particularly as he had kind of been Sam and Six’s boss and had gotten them involved in all of this in the first place.

  Nine nodded at Max and Nemo. “Go get ready,” he said. “We leave in twenty minutes.”

  Max and Nemo hurried out. Once they were in the corridor, Max whispered, “Is it just me, or was it really tense in there?”

  “Totally tense,” Nemo said. “Something’s up between Nine and Seamus’s dad.”

  Max shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be Seamus right now,” he said.

  Nemo grunted in reply. Max knew she was as angry with their former friend as he was. He wondered what she would do if she came face-to-face with Seamus in Vegas. He wondered what he would
do.

  He had a feeling they were going to find out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SAM

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  ELENI WAS IN A RAGE.

  Sam, seated on a chair with his wrists shackled to its back supports, watched as she stormed around the room she had dragged him to. Outside the windows he could see the sparkling lights of what he now realized was Las Vegas. The room he was in was very high up, and he had a sweeping view. He recognized a number of the hotel names that flashed in neon colors against the night sky, a number of the faces that appeared on billboards announcing concerts and shows.

  He also knew that he was inside the Saturn Hotel. The hotel’s logo was everywhere: on the stationery that sat on the nearby desk, on the pocket of the bathrobe that sat folded on the end of the bed, worked into the pattern of the wallpaper and carpet. He remembered reading about the building of the place in a travel magazine he’d looked at during a flight he and Six had taken from Paris to Venice. It was the Strip’s newest, biggest and most opulent hotel. As he recalled it had only recently opened.

  The question was, why was he there, and what connection did the Mogs have to it? They obviously had one, as Eleni knew her way around the place and had used an elevator clearly meant for internal staff to get him up to the room unnoticed. But why were they even in a hotel at all? Why not someplace more secretive and secure? It didn’t make any sense to him.

  Not that that was his primary concern at the moment. The thing in his head was. Whatever it was doing, it was getting worse. His whole body hurt, and he knew he was getting weaker. He’d of course tried to use his Legacies to help in some way—any way—and nothing was working. Not his telekinesis. Not his technopathy. He couldn’t so much as change the channel on the enormous television that was mounted to the wall.

  “Why are you not here yet?” Eleni shouted into the phone in her hand. She was pacing back and forth in front of the window, one hand on her hip. This was the third time she’d called the person, and the tone of her voice had grown increasingly impatient with each conversation.

  The door to the room suddenly opened and in walked Magdalena, also on the phone. “I’m here now,” she said.